Keep Breathing, Stay Beating
by ArmedWithMyComputer
Summary: It feels like the world has ended when the stake enters the body next to him. George lets out this animalistic scream, fiercer than anything he's done before in his wolf form, when his best friend suddenly lists to the side. There's no Josie to take the fall for them this time. "What are we going to do?" A sob wells up in his chest, "Mitchell, how am I supposed to fix this?"
1. Chapter 1

It feels like the world has ended when the stake enters the body next to him.

George lets out this animalistic scream, fiercer than anything he's done before in his wolf form, when his best friend suddenly lists to the side. There's the sound of footsteps as someone brushes past him, but all he can think is that _they were supposed to be safe this time_.

It's the middle of the day, in a crowed street, and George really doesn't have any idea how this could have happened. It gets all too real though when Mitchell coughs out a mouthful of blood, his hands scrabbling at George's shirt, and when passers-by rush over.

The whole thing is just far too real.

Someone calls an ambulance, and there's another person crouching beside them to put pressure on the wound, but all George can see are his best friend's helpless eyes, and the blood covering his shirt. It's too much like that first time, when Herrick had shattered everything in seconds, and he doesn't know what to do.

Several seconds pass them by, moments when George tries to remember how to breathe, as he watches Mitchell struggle to. Part of him wonders if Mitchell even needs to breathe, but he's gasping and blood is coating his teeth. They've sank down onto the ground, Mitchell's legs splayed all over the path, while his are tucked neatly underneath him. George stares into his friend's agony filled eyes, seeing the red blood pump steadily out of him, and whines.

Then paramedics swarm them quickly, and all George knows is that there's no way that he's letting Mitchell out of his sight.

They're quick and professional, while people on the street watch with hands covering their horrified expressions. IVs slip in, and backboards slide under, and suddenly Mitchell isn't in his arms anymore—and it's _wrong_.

Mitchell moans and thrashes in the ambulance, held down by straps across his torso and the paramedic almost sitting on his chest to try and stop the bleeding. George keeps hold of one of his hands, feeling the coldness of it, and wonders for a split second if Mitchell ever misses being _warm_.

He's shaking, that much he can tell, but the tremors that wrack his body only intensify as they reach the hospital. Because he knows that they're going to take Mitchell away, he knows that they won't be able to save him, not properly. George knows that this could be the last few moments that he has with _Mitchell_, because the shell of a man that had been left behind in the hospital bed last time had almost killed him.

There's no Josie to take the fall for them this time.

They reach the hospital far too quickly, and George has to run to keep up with the gurney. He locks eyes with Mitchell, his friend gasping and flailing his arms around weakly, while he prattles off the stream of meaningless information that they'd made up the last time, to explain the lack of a heartbeat. (Just a faint one, which runs in the family, yes, yes, that's it, that's why you can't get a reading.) It's utter bullshit, but it's all that that they've got.

Mitchell is quickly wheeled away from him, down a corridor that he can't follow, and George is left feeling so empty and broken. There's blood splattered all over him, and he stares at it numbly, wondering if Mitchell will ever be able to replenish the liquid without having to drink. He knows that his friend won't be able to though, and something breaks inside him when he thinks about what that means.

He manages to call Nina though, and she promises to be over as quick as she can. He hears Annie scream in the background, and his heart wrenches at the sound.

When they arrive, George tries to speak, he really does, but nothing comes out. Annie cries and lashes out at him, but nothing changes the fact that Mitchell is probably dying, again, and there's nothing that they can do. Nina leaves for a while to try and get information, seeing as she works in the hospital they've been brought to, and all the while George just stares at the lino floor and realises that he can't live life without his best friend.

The clock ticks by slowly, and Annie finally curls up next to him, tears streaming down her face.

When a doctor comes hesitantly down the hall towards them, a regretful look on his face, they just _know_. The man hesitantly begins to speak to George, and he tries to listen to the words, but it's hard when Annie is right beside him, bawling and screaming.

They know that Mitchell isn't dead. His body never turned to ash, so George assumes that means that the stake hadn't entered his heart—but that's not much of a comfort. Mitchell might not be dead, but that's only because he's unable to die.

"Can we see him?"

Mitchell is in intensive care, that much is obvious by the sheer lack of hope that George feels as he follows the doctor through a maze of corridors. He ignores the usual speech that they give family members, even though technically no one's asked him how he's related, and marches straight in, Annie clinging to his side.

The sounds of monitors and machines assault him the minute he walks into the room, and for a split second, George cringes back. He feels shameful and shocked when he realises what he's done, but Annie is already halfway to the bed, and Mitchell lets out a moan.

Tears prickle at the back of his eyes, but he sniffs them away, as he moves towards Mitchell, but the same cannot be said for Annie. Mitchell cracks an eye open when he hears a disturbance beside his bed, but it slides closed again once he sees who it is. He's shirtless, and bandaged up tightly, wires and tubes anchoring him to the bed.

George notices that he's hooked up to heart monitors, despite his 'condition.'

For the first few minutes, Annie just cries, George hovers, and Mitchell concentrates on just breathing.

He doesn't think that he's ever seen his friend looking worse, his skin so pale it looks translucent. Mitchell's lips are cracked and bleeding, and his hands display numerous IV lines, in an attempt to provide more transfusion sites.

At least someone cleaned all the blood off him though.

There's still dried blood covering George's shirt, and now, looking down at Mitchell who's _almost_ dying from blood loss, he's never wanted to change clothes so badly. Nina seems to sense his discomfort, as she enters minutes later, and presses a clean shirt into his hand.

Within two seconds, George has ripped off his blood crusted shirt, struggling not to shudder as he feels the flakes of blood scrape from his skin, and flings it into the corner of the room. He sinks into the chair beside the bed then, and rests his head against the mattress.

"What are we going to do?" A sob wells up in his chest, and Nina puts her hand gently on his shoulder, "Mitchell, _what are we going to do_?"

.

The next few hours pass agonisingly slow.

Mitchell keeps breathing, but that's only because he has no other choice. George watches his friend sadly, and wants to scream with the unfairness of the situation. He can almost feel Mitchell slipping away, but the vampire side of him clings to life, not allowing him to slip into peaceful death.

He doesn't want his friend to die, George thinks as he lays a hand gently over Mitchell's, but this looks like some kind of torturous purgatory.

It's evident in the nurses' faces that they hadn't expected Mitchell to last this long. They come in every few minutes, to check equipment and change IV bags, and shake their heads in disbelief when they look properly at his stats.

The blood transfusions aren't working, just as George knew they wouldn't, because Mitchell needs to _drink_ blood to get better, not have it infused into his veins. He keeps his mouth shut though, feeling the warm presence of Nina beside him, and watches as Annie curls up next to Mitchell on the bed.

Mitchell drifts in and out of consciousness, but he doesn't say much. It's mostly just moans and murmurs, but George still gets excited every time he comes round, and leans in close to hear what he's saying. Annie spends the minutes that Mitchell is with them smoothing down his hair, and whispering that he's fine, and that he'll be better soon. She promised it so many times, that George lets himself believe it for a few seconds, and it feels so _good_.

George doesn't even have any idea who attacked Mitchell, and that fact troubles him.

He assumes that in the past hundred years, Mitchell had managed to make some enemies, but they had never really talked properly about his past in depth. George doesn't even know if the attacker was human or a vampire. No police bother them though, due to the fact that it looks like Mitchell is about to die any second now, and hospital staff have developed the uncanny knack of warding off and stalling any police over the years.

None of them talk about what they're going to do in the long term; even though they all know that Mitchell won't get better by himself.

Doctors stick their heads in every once in a while, raised eyebrows a testament to the fact that he shouldn't be alive, but George really doesn't have the strength to deal with them. Words like _deteriorating_, and _no improvement_ and _unresponsive to treatment_ are thrown around, but it's not like they're listening anymore.

Light filters through the window when morning comes, rays of sunshine that cause Mitchell to whine in pain when he opens his tender eyes—light that is immediately blocked out by George, so fast and panicked that he knocks over a cabinet, and goes down with it.

Mitchell huffs out a laugh, and then is gone once again.

.

He feels like he's sliding down a mountain, like he's slipping further and further into the cold clench of an icy abyss.

Sometimes he can hear George's voice, Annie's too, but mostly he can hear the thrumming of pulses, and feel the _hunger_. The bed underneath him feels like it's tipping, but Mitchell is almost positive that it's the nausea causing it.

His chest aches like nothing before, all his strength expelled within the blink of an eye. Mitchell considers just letting go and stopping breathing, to conserve energy if nothing else, but it's such a deeply ingrained habit by now—and the thought of more nurses swarming around him is exhausting.

Instead, he settles for panting weakly, wondering how the hell they're going to pull this one off.

Maybe he could doze off until the morning, and then get George to smuggle him out. But he's so close to death at this point, can taste it on his lips just as surely as he had felt the wood fibres pierce his flesh, that he knows it's impossible.

Only way he's walking out of here is with a lifeless blood bank left behind.

_Josie_.

The word must have slipped out of his mouth, because suddenly someone is gripping his hand tighter, words floating around his head that he can't decipher. Mitchell thinks that he replies, but he's almost certain that it had been in old Gaelic, so he doesn't know how much good it's doing.

He expends just a bit more strength to squint up at Annie, stroking his hair back and looking like she was living her worst nightmare. Worse than being dead. That makes him show his teeth in some grotesque form of a grin, before he feels death's grip tug him down just a bit further.

George makes this high pitched wining noise that breaks through the watery deafness, and Mitchell twitches his fingers in a pathetic form of response.

.

War often comes back to him at conflicting times.

He remembers it, as if anyone could really forget, and sometimes it feels like it's still ripping him apart from the inside out. Mitchell got a way out from the blood and violence, got flung into a whole new level of it all—but he can always hear those screams, the feeling of watching a man fall, and just _knowing_—knowing that he would never get back up, and that it could be him next.

George and Annie could never understand, never. He sees their expressions when he goes to the memorial statues, even if they don't see them themselves. People on the street look at him funny, when he salutes perfectly at the names engraved in stone and marble, when he kneels down on the pavement and reads them all.

His name is out there somewhere, in some semi-complete list of all the fallen soldiers, _John Mitchell,_ and it makes him sick. He didn't die alongside all those brave men, his friends and comrades, even if he did bleed out on a pile of corpses.

Mitchell didn't die because he couldn't. Something had held him back then, and it was doing the same again now.

He felt another laboured breath pass, the rise of his chest a somewhat insulting but comical version of what he had once been. His head lolls slightly on his shoulder, above the small mountain of pillows, and a cool hand is placed on his forehead.

All he wants is to make it stop.

_Josie_.

.

George's head is deep in his hands, and it doesn't look like it's going to come out. He flinches when he hears the '_Josie'_ again, and refuses to look at Mitchell's cracked and bleeding lips whisper it. In fact, he doesn't think that he can even glance back at the bed, or at anything else for that matter.

Mitchell is beyond pale, looking every bit the undead creature that he is, and George hates it. He despises the reminder that just keeps coming back to kick them down, and not for the first time he thinks of the monster Herrick had been, and the stark differences between the two.

But Mitchell is the same.

They've all seen each other on their bad days, George having the most of them, but he's has never been more terrified of anything then when he sees Mitchell lose control. Back at the Pink House, when the feral side had taken hold, and his best friend had been snarling across the table at him, leering forward with that _look_ in his eyes—It had been one of the worst moments of his life.

It's easy to forget sometimes, too easy.

They don't think of it when they're huddled on the couch, all three of them pressed up together, when it doesn't matter that two of them don't have a heartbeat.

With Annie, it's different, it is. Mitchell has blood on his hands, a thick coating of red that they can mostly look away from. But it always just keeps coming back to haunt them, through hunger bouts and the blank stares that sometimes sucked Mitchell in, when he would just gaze into space looking painfully conflicted and furious.

He always comes back to them though. After the pain and anguish, always comes Mitchell—with that wide grin and infectious humour.

George wonders if it'll be the same this time.

It has to be though. Because if he can just avoid looking at Mitchell, already the illusion that things can get better becomes stronger, and it gets easier to block out the weak panting. His friend's hand is limp in his firm grip, but George keeps holding tightly, hoping that he can lend some of his strength.

Because maybe if he can just—

"_George_."

His head snaps up, and George leans in close, until he can almost feel Mitchell's breath wheezing against his face, "What is it, Mitchell? M-Mitchell, tell me what you need?" His best friend sighs out what could have been a chuckle in another time, and his head lolls slightly so that it's tilted towards George.

"No blood this time…." Mitchell's voice is faint, lighter than a feather, but George knows what he's saying. He can't reply, can only grip Mitchell's hand tighter, and Annie lets out a moan from beside them. But their vampire is speaking again, or rather, trying to—cracked lips moving slowly but determined, "Take… me home."

"Home?" George hears his voice rise up a few octaves at the end of the word, and it feels like something is breaking inside his chest.

Mitchell tries to smile wearily, lips just managing to turn up at the corners, and his eyes drift open for another second, "Can try to—replenish on my own." He heaves in another painful breath, and Annie gently puts her cool hand on his forehead, "Maybe… it can be done."

No one says anything for a few beats, until George finds himself speaking without knowing it, "Of course, Mitchell, we'll—we'll get you home, and—and then we'll deal with it. Ah, okay, _home_. Home, Mitchell, we're going home."

He grins again, for a heartbeat, and then he's gone. Mitchell fades back into the melting darkness where George can't follow, and he's left alone with the others.

Nina makes a small noise in the back of her throat, and George finds himself leaning back into her embrace, "He wants to go _home_, Nina," He mutters helplessly, "But nothing is going to—how am I supposed to fix it? I can't—I don't know…"

She just rests her chin on the top of his head, and Annie curls up on the bed beside Mitchell, "I'll try and sort something out with the hospital. We can say that it's, I don't know, some kind of hospice facility that he wants, somewhere to—they'll let him go, I think. When people are—in these circumstances— we all just want them to be as comfortable as possible."

"They think he's dying," Annie says simply, one hand brushing the curls away from Mitchell's face, "and they'll let him go. Maybe he is."

George reaches out a hand towards her, but he can't bring himself to stretch it all the over across the still body between them. "Mitchell is going to be fine. H-he said that he has a plan, and we need to focus on that. Let's—let's just get through right now, and then we can start thinking about… later."

.

"Mitchell. Mitchell—I, we need you to pretend to be dead."

The words taste wrong and bitter in his mouth, but George says them, and then repeats. His friend cracks one eye open, hazy and unfocused, and pants another breath. Annie moves into his line of vision then, and gently says, "Mitchell, if you want to come home, we need—you have to be dead. The hospital won't release you, and we can't just—take you."

Mitchell shifts minutely, and his eyes slip closed, but George forces him to stay awake, "No—no, Mitchell, listen to me. This is important. Mitchell—yes, are you listening? All you need to do is stop breathing. Just stop breathing, and they'll think you're g-gone, and then we can take you home. Mitchell, can you hear me?"

They'd agreed on this plan, no less than an hour ago, and none of them were sure yet that it wasn't madness.

But Mitchell had told George once, lifetimes ago from this moment, that he was just so in the habit of breathing, that it came naturally to him. He didn't need to, though.

"Can you understand us, Mitchell?" Nina asks then, her voice kind but firm.

They still don't get a verbal reply, but Mitchell narrows his eyes briefly, and then just stops breathing without any warning.

George's heart may have skipped a beat, despite knowing what it meant, and a sudden wave of despair floods over him as Mitchell's eyes slip closed, and he looks _dead he looks dead he looks dead_—

He lets out a wail against his will, and Nina arm on his elbow is the only thing keeping him upright, because suddenly George doesn't think that he can carry through with this plan—it's too real, it's too real. "_No_—" He manages to say through the tears choking him, and his vision starts to go dark.

Mitchell moves his hand then, despite the lack of movement in his chest, and grips George's hand tightly—before going motionless again.

It's not quite enough to quell the crushing panic inside his chest, but it does help him to remember how to breathe. Nina takes that as a cue to rush out to the nurses, stumbling over her rehearsed words as she tells them that Mitchell is gone.

George sways on his feet, clutching onto his friend's hand with an emotion akin to desperation, and knows that he looks alone to everyone around them, despite being able to feel Annie's presence beside him. She leans down to kiss Mitchell on the cheek, and whisper, "_We'll bring you home_."

More people come into the room now, their voices low and respectful, but even though he knows that it's not real—George still can't move. He has to be pried away from Mitchell's limp hand by Nina, and even then he can't seem to stop the tears from falling hot and fast.

He bites down on his lip when they start to carefully peel away the monitors and tubes, and all sound seems to drain away from the world when a sheet is draped over his friend's face.

"It's not real, George, it's not real," Annie repeats over and over, but he can only see her lips moving in front of his face, and feel Nina's arms wrapped around him. It feels like he's losing Mitchell over and over again, his skin suddenly hyper-sensitive to the flakes of dried blood still on him. He's shaking, body taken over by tremors, and it's almost as if George can feel the colour draining out of his face. The staff shoot him sad looks, as George feels his heart breaking in two.

Then they wheel the bed with the body out of the room, and George finds himself stumbling down the corridor in another direction.

Nina and Annie try to follow him, but he holds up a shaky hand just before he half falls into the male bathroom. There, he grips the edges of the sink so hard that his fingers turn white, and he lets out angry sobs that swirl around his head and down the drain.

.

George emerges from the restroom, face scrubbed with water, to find Nina leaning against the wall alone.

"Annie went after him. We have to fill out some forms, and then—we'll get him home." He nods, and they sit down together, neither saying anything about the way George's hand can't stop shaking so his signature turns out like a childish scribble.

Someone presses a plastic bag of Mitchell's items into his hand, saying words that are probably condolences, and he lets Nina lead him outside and into the car. There they just sit, silently, until the sun sets and the majority of cars leave around their space in the car park. All the people heading home for the night seem so innocent, that it makes the ache in his chest get sharper and stronger, until George just leans his head against the steering wheel, not looking up until Nina nudges him gently.

They have to wait until its dark, before they slip around the back of the hospital with the car, and George feels that ice-cold hand wrap around his heart once more as he eases Mitchell into the backseat. His friend had briefly drifted his eyes open to reassure George, but something still felt wrong deep in his chest.

The door was open and waiting for them by the time they reached home, and Nina kept a look out for neighbours while George once again had to bite his teeth against Mitchell's groans and drag him inside. Annie pretended not to be wiping her eyes as George practically fell to the ground with Mitchell in an attempt to get him on the mattress that Annie had dragged downstairs.

He barely stirs as they cover him gently with blankets, but then Mitchell mutters, "Home, George—you got me home."

George drops to his knees in a heartbeat, and feel his bottom lip wobbling, "I did, Mitchell, we made it home. Now it's up to you to hold up y-your end of the bargain, and get better—okay?"

Mitchell grunts a response, and George accepts it, turning on the television on low even as the pain in his chest remains, the sound low enough so that Mitchell can just hear The Real Hustle starting. His friend smiles faintly, and Annie pushes a welcome mug of tea into his hands.

They're finally home—but George still doesn't know how this is going to have a happy ending.

.

_(so I've been away from writing for the past year—and this just feels so good). I hope this was okay; I have plans to continue it when I next get a spare moment. Let me know what you think._

_Thanks for reading, _

_ArmedWithMyComputer xx_


	2. Chapter 2

George sleeps on the couch for the remainder of the night.

Sleep is a relative term though, because he mostly just stares at the sliver of sky that he can see from his position on the black leather, and glances at Mitchell periodically. The vampire has been drifting in and out of a daze, mostly just alternating between being silent and muttering.

A few times, Mitchel stops breathing.

It only stands to reason, George tells himself in his best rational voice, that Mitchell had gotten out of the habit. After all, it had been George who had asked him to stop in the beginning, so they could get him out of the hospital, but he still freezes every time he realises that his friend has gone deadly still.

"Mitchell? Mitchell, keep breathing—keep, I know it hurts, but Mitchell, please, just—yes okay, that's it."

When he'd been aware enough, his friend had groaned out an apology, even as his body struggled to heave in air that it didn't actually need, and George just felt so _guilty_. But he keeps reminding Mitchell, keeps nudging him gently with the heel of his hand, and tries not to hyperventilate too loudly.

The hours tick by, and light begins to shine through the window. Mitchell moans when he tries to open his eyes, and George stumbles over apologies like they can somehow make things better. His friend reaches out a limp hand, and George grabs it tightly, clutching onto the pale limb and focusing on the rise and fall of Mitchell's chest.

"You got me home, George."

He breathes in deeply, words gathering thickly in his throat, and makes some kind of a high pitched cough, "Y-Yes we did. Now how are you going—I mean, what do you… How are you going to get better, Mitchell. When you said that you could replenish on your own, what—what exactly did you mean?"

Mitchell lets out a weak cough, and his other hand ghosts over his chest with a wince, "Think I can… build my strength back up. Not sure I can though… It'll take a lot, energy and time. I'll be weak. No one's ever done it—I don't think. Usually just… feed."

George nods numbly, wishing that the voice in the back of his head would stop trying to think of alternative solutions—ones that involved blood and Mitchell trying to stop before the other person died. He felt all the emotions and love for his friend begin to well up again, despite all the circumstances and the trail of bodies that followed Mitchell everywhere and instead bit down on his lip.

"What'll that take, then? What can I do?"

The vampire's eyes slipped closed for a moment, before he bobbed back up to consciousness, "Carbs. That normally gets me going a bit faster. Keep me awake, don't—let me drift for too long. It gets hard to pull myself back, not like death, but just… drifting It feels like I'm getting lost in memories."

"And keep breathing."

Mitchell breathes out the shadow of a laugh, and George wonders for a moment if his friend has given up on the practice altogether. His chest clenches tightly. "Yeah. And that, I suppose. Not going to die though—stake only hit lung."

A nervous laugh erupts out of him, and George rocks back and forth for a moment, "So shall I order pizza then? For the carbs?" Mitchell simply rolls his head into a more comfortable position on the mattress, and George studies his watch carefully, struggling to keep himself calm and rational, "Well, it's only eight in the morning, but I'm sure somewhere will be open, right? We'll just be their more interesting clientele."

Annie has crept in by now, sinking down to kneel beside Mitchell, and George takes that as his cue to head into the kitchen. "Right. Pizza! At eight in the morning… Have we got any takeaway menus, Annie?"

While George begins to methodically empty the cutlery drawer of all its utensils in order to find the dusty menus that lie underneath, Nina comes down from his bedroom, glancing in at Mitchell and Annie before giving George a weary smile, "How is he?"

"Fine. Fine, Mitchell is fine. He wants pizza, well not in as many words, but I'm going to order it anyway. Carbs will do the trick. What about you—fancy some kebabs for breakfast?" He can feel the hysteria rising up within him again, and George channels it into packing the spoons back into the drawer as enthusiastically as he can. They clatter and make an almighty noise, but he waves the menus above his head in some kind of victory salute.

Nina watches him carefully for a few minutes, and then nods, picking up the phone and gesturing for one of the menus.

It takes her a few minutes of negotiating, while George leans against the wall and stares blankly in at Mitchell and Annie, but Nina manages to get one of the takeaways to deliver. Then she and George sit at the kitchen table, waiting for the doorbell.

When the pizza finally arrives, it's accompanied by a loud knocking at the door—and Mitchell flinches violently from his mattress on the floor.

George has to take a moment to remember how to breathe, because this isn't like the first time, when a knock at the door was associated with Herrick ramming a stake through Mitchell. He does hesitate before answering the door cautiously, hand shaking as he holds out the money, and it's a relief to let the door close again.

Because this is all that he needs for now, this little room filled with the people that mean the most to him.

"Mitchell! Time to eat something, come on, yes, Annie, take these and I'll—um, Mitchell do you want to try sitting up?" George passes the pizza off to Annie, and crouches down to his best friend. Mitchell blinks slowly at him, and manages to nod, which George takes as a yes.

He bites his lip for a moment, before trying to gently grasp Mitchell's shoulders and lever him into a more vertical position. It tears at his heart to hear Mitchell's moans, and George is grateful then for Nina's assistance on his other side.

Annie stays in the kitchen, frozen, with her hands over her eyes.

When it's over, and Mitchell is listing sideways against George, she comes back, with pizza and tea for everyone. The combined smells make George nauseated, but he forces a strained smile onto his face, and Mitchell rolls his eyes at him.

.

Mitchell feels disconnected.

He can feel his shoulder digging into George's side, can smell the greasiness of the pizza, and can hear the conversation going on around him—but everything seems muted. His chest burns with every forced breath that he takes, and the temptation to just stop is constantly on his mind.

As his ribs and lungs expand and contract to fill his chest cavity with useless air, the wound caused by the stake burns. Mitchell pants out another breath, and feels George's shuddering ones against his side.

He drifts off for another bit, and hazily comes back to the sound of George and Annie talking. Mitchell doesn't move though, can't bring himself to show any indication that he's somewhat conscious. They speak too quietly for him to hear, and soon enough he's back to drifting.

The darkness slips over him, and he feels his breathing hitch, painlessly. It's _relief_.

George's hand settles lightly on his chest then, and even though he's being so careful, Mitchell cannot help the moan that escapes past his lips. He takes another breath in then, but only for his friend. And then another, and even though it hurts, he can feel George relaxing beside him, and Mitchell forces his body to continue.

For his friends.

.

George frowns, with his hand hovering over Mitchell's chest so lightly that it's as if he's not actually touching him at all.

But Annie had still clapped a hand over her mouth at the sound of that awful moan that he had made Mitchell let out, and George feels guilt tearing at his chest. Mitchell is breathing again though, slowly and as regularly as George could hope for, and he retracts his hand awkwardly.

"He's going to be okay, Annie," He says, but it sounds hollow even to his ears.

She sniffs loudly, covering his face for a few moments, but wipes away all traces of tears before she looks back at him, "I know. I know, I mean—we brought him home. We got him home, and he's still here. He just needs time, time to get better."

George wraps one arm around her then, used to the chill that goes through him every time they touch. She's shaking ever so slightly, and her hands are fidgeting—like they do every time she announces that she's going to make tea. Annie is the most predictable one of them all, he thinks.

"Do you—do you think you could make me a cuppa?"

Annie seems to uplift immediately, springing off the ground where they'd been huddled next to Mitchell, and almost runs to the kitchen. George smiles sadly, glancing down at Mitchell's head resting against his side.

But then their ghost renters the room after only a few minutes, looking like she'd died for the second time. George feels fear clench around his heart again, and he feels physically sick—but for what reason he has no idea. What could have turned Annie so desolate so quickly—_Nina_.

George thinks that his heart has quite literally skipped a beat, as he opens his mouth to ask after the disaster that has quite obviously taken place, but Annie speaks before he can get any words out.

"We're out of teabags."

And then she bursts into tears.

Feeling his brain begin to work at normal speed again, George opens and closes his mouth several times, without words. Mitchell is still propped up against him, practically a dead weight, and George panics, wondering how he can safely lie his friend back down so he can comfort Annie properly.

Luckily, Nina comes running down the stairs, probably hearing Annie's wretched sobs, and finds them looking helplessly at each other. Annie has the empty box of teabags in her trembling hands, and George is running his hands through his hair.

She saves them both, guiding Annie towards the couch, and soothing her sobs until silent tears are just leaking out of Annie's eyes while she gazes at the lack of teabags.

"I think we should get out of the house for a bit, hmm, Annie? What do you think? I think it's a good idea, we'll get some more teabags, as much as you want, and have a little chat. George can take care of things in the house for a bit—can't you, George?"

He nods furiously; reaching up to pat Annie's leg in a way that he hopes conveys his concern.

They leave then, Annie kissing Mitchell's cheek slightly, and giving George a watery smile. "We'll be home soon, George, promise," Nina whispers in his ear, and he just kisses her softly—grateful beyond words for her support and intuition.

Then it's just him and Mitchell, like it was in the beginning.

.

"I was in a war, once," Mitchell speaks, shifting weakly against George. The statement in itself is shocking, and George bites his lip, having never heard Mitchell speak willingly about his past before becoming a vampire. Mitchell sighs heavily, and his eyes seem vacant.

George swallows carefully, not knowing what to say, "You, ah, you mentioned it before—yes."

"I think we won but… I didn't. There was running and shouting—and blood. So much blood. I knew those men, the ones on the memorials. We fought together, lived together, bled together. Until—until I didn't." He's silent for a few more minutes then, breathing heavily with the exertion of it all, and when he speaks again, Mitchell's words are layered with emotions. "I didn't get to finish the war with them, George. Mine—the war ended differently for me."

He nods slowly, "I know, Mitchell."

His friend reaches out to grab his hand, and George holds it tightly, "I think – I think I lost the war, George. _I lost_. Herrick twisted me, changed me, and things aren't the same." Mitchell draws in a shuddering breath, and it's almost a mockery to the whole situation, because it seems so irrelevant to everything going on. "My name is out there somewhere, on a register of all the _heroes_," He spits the word out as if it tastes foul in his throat, "I'm no hero—I've never been."

"I'm sorry." George doesn't know why he's apologising, but he says it anyway.

Mitchell hangs his head low, and touches his chest tenderly, "I lost."

.

He helps Mitchell lie down again after a while, after coaxing a glass of water and a slice of cold pizza into him, and his friend turns his head away from him on the mattress.

George dithers around for a few minutes then, unsure of what to do, and he finds himself frowning at the dirt ingrained onto the floorboards. Ten minutes later he's on his knees scrubbing at the dirt on the floor, growling harshly at the sponge in his hands.

There might be a moment when he thinks he hears Mitchell chuckle slightly, but he ignores it.

He's not quite sure why it's so important, but George just _needs_ to get all the dirt out of the floor. He ends up slaving away over the floorboards, really putting all his strength into it, and eventually the shades of the boards get a little bit lighter.

The feeling of triumph is unfamiliar when it finally hits him.

So he keeps going, and ends up cleaning the entire room, grinning with satisfaction at the cleanness of the ground.

Nina and Annie return to the house to find George lying on his back in the middle of the spotless floor, surrounded by a sleeping Mitchell, a sponge, and a bucket of dirty soapy water that's been refilled several times. He smiles wearily at them, and lets them both shake their heads at him.

He allows Nina to push him into the shower, a pair of fresh clothes in his hands, and the water flows onto his face like the tears that he hasn't let himself shed. He emerges in a haze of some sort, and can't summon up the energy to complain when he's steered straight to his bedroom.

George presses his face to the pillow, closes his eyes, and for a few hours he gets to pretend that everything is back to normal. He wakes to find Annie perching at the end of his bed, and commends himself silently for not cursing aloud.

"Annie," and his voice sounds strangled, "What are you doing?"

She smoothes down the ends of his duvet, and curls a strand of hair around his finger, "I wanted to apologise—for earlier." Before George can get all his '_you have nothing to be sorry for_,' out, she silences him with one look, and he reluctantly lets her continue, "I should have been stronger. I will be—I just got scared earlier. Me and Nina had a chat."

"That's good."

"I'm ready to be stronger for Mitchell, and I know that we can bring him back. I'm ready to try harder."

George wants to tell her that she's been so strong already, but he knows that it would make no difference to her. So instead he just pulls her into a hug, and nods against her shoulder, "We can both be strong for him, protect him while he's like this. We'll get him back. We will." He's mostly reassuring himself, but it seems to help Annie as well.

.

Downstairs, Mitchell is awake again, even sitting up on the couch which makes them both grin.

Nina must be an angel, George thinks wildly, and there's no way that he deserves her, not after everything that's happened. He pulls her into a grateful kiss, that makes Mitchell say hoarsely, "Get a room, you two, we don't need to be seeing all this werewolf action here. Cop on."

Annie laughs then, and Mitchell turns his lips upwards in some sort of a smile for her.

They all settle in on the couch then, Mitchell supported mainly by George and Annie—and for a while, they can forget. Sometime in the middle of the program on television, Mitchell dozes off, and George keeps an arm slung carefully around him to keep him upright.

But when he jerks awake a few hours later, a nightmare clearly in his eyes, there's only one name on his lips.

"Josie," Mitchell whines, sending a chill up George's spine, "Josie, where's—where's Josie?" None of them can say anything for a few moments, but that only sends Mitchell into even more of a frenzy. He thrashes weakly on the couch, and moans deeply when that aggravates his wound, "Josie!"

Finally Annie finds her voice, and places a hand on Mitchell's forearm, "She's not here, Mitchell, she's—Josie is gone. Do you remember?"

Slowly, Mitchell goes limp into George's hold, and his eyes are slightly clouded over, like he's not fully lucid anymore, "I think I loved her. Did I—did I kill her again?" He looks so full of sorrow, like its bursting him at the seams and splitting his insides apart.

"N-no you didn't, Mitchell. You didn't kill her again. You made it home on your own, we helped you get home. Josie is gone," The words feel like sandpaper in his throat, but George forces them out anyway. He bends his head to see the tears welling up in the vampire's eyes, and then almost wishes that he hadn't.

"I loved her," Mitchell says again, and they all just nod mournfully, "I—I promised myself that I would never hurt her. She was my… everything. She made me better, like you do." Her name slips out again, like a mantra that he's repeating to himself, "_Josie_… I didn't want to do it, last time, _I didn't want to_. She had me wrapped around her finger though, and she—she said that she wanted it." A tear slips past his defences, "But I didn't. I didn't, George, I swear."

George nods carefully, too overwhelmed to say anything, and just pats Mitchell's shoulder gently.

"We know you didn't, Mitchell," Annie says then, and even her eyes are filling with tears.

Mitchell turns his wild eyes on her then, and says in a broken voice, "Don't let there be another Josie. I don't want there to be another Josie, there can't be. This _can't_ be like last time, you can't let it end the same. Oh God, _Josie_."

This version of Mitchell terrifies George, because he's not in control like he usually is. Instead he's spinning off balance, tearing off the tracks and bringing George's heart with him. He leans his head back against the couch and draws in a deep breath, trying to draw strength from somewhere, anywhere.

"It's going to be okay," He hears himself saying firmly, "It's going to be okay, and we're all going to be fine eventually."

But this Mitchell is careening off course, and breaking down faster than George can try to patch him up. It's like watching an accident in slow-motion, because it doesn't feel like he can do anything to stop it. The pieces of Mitchell that he had kept so hidden within himself are tearing free, and breaking him apart as they do.

The others just stare at him helplessly, and Mitchell drifts away in his arms again.

.

_Hope this was okay, a bit later than I had intended for. Thanks for all the reviews and follows—very much appreciated!_

_Thanks for reading, _

_ArmedWithMyComputer xx_


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